Readers’ queries: Ulster Bank’s free service proves difficult to maintain

A couple of readers are less than happy with Ulster Bank. In recent years, the bank was one of the few financial institutions in the Republic which did not charge fees for basic services. But last year it started imposing them on many customers. There were ways around it, mind you. Not any more.

Paul from Donegal sent us a mail "about the unbelievable brass-necked changes to [Ulster Bank's] free bank account conditions".

He sent us a quote from a letter he got from the bank. “We notice that you’ve been able to avoid paying [the monthly maintenance] fee for the past few months by lodging at least €3,000 into your account and therefore meeting this waiver. From 19th September 2014 you will no longer be able to avoid paying the fee in this way,” the letter said explaining he would need a daily cleared balance of €3,000 in the account for the full charging cycle .

He says the bank promised free banking to those who lodged €3,000: because he actually managed to do that, the bank changed its mind. “We will write to the ombudsman and we will be moving our account but choices are getting few and far between.”

A guy called Gerald is similarly incensed. “In September 2013 I was informed that Ulster Bank would be introducing a €4 monthly bank charge. In order to avoid paying the charges there were two waivers: waiver one required a lodgement of at least €3,000 (which the bank informed me could include my wages) into the bank account each month. Waiver two is to have a constant bank balance above €3,000 during the month.”

As the second waiver was impossible for him to meet, he managed to lodge €3,000 every month. That option has now been taken away.

“I am annoyed that Ulster Bank have decided to remove the waiver that I can meet. This is compounded by the wording of the letter which suggests an attitude of ‘how dare a customer manage to avoid the fees’ and now we will just make it harder to avoid the charges. I rang Ulster Bank to query the decision for removing waiver one and was told the decision is final and will be implemented.”

He points out that he has been a customer for 32 years and has had to endure poor service and technical difficulties over the years and says that because of this “money-making exercise” he is thinking about moving bank accounts.

Ulster Bank said it had notified all customers of the change in July – as it is legally obliged to do – and said this letter was “to inform customers we noticed were meeting the waiver of the change and to inform them of the other waiver option”.

It said a “large number of customers will continue to avoid fees”. Presumably by keeping €3,000 in their current account – thereby losing any potential returns they could get by investing it elsewhere.

Gift card that keeps taking

Margaret O’Neill wants to draw reader’s attention to a problem she has with One 4 All gift cards. On Christmas Eve 2012 her son bought a gift voucher for her with a face value of €40. It had an expiry date of August 2017 so she presumed the card would be valid until then.

"A couple of days ago I tried to use my gift card against a purchase at Argos, " she writes. "However, they said my card was not for €40 but for €26.95."

She went home and rang One 4 All. “ I was informed that the date on the card is a date they have to put on all cards as a legal obligation but it has no bearing as to the date it goes out of date. I was referred to the booklet with the One 4 All gift card. The gift card runs for 12 months and every month after that, that it is not used, €1.45 comes off the balance, hence my balance has gone down to €26.95.”

She was, she writes, “absolutely gobsmacked” and points out that she “would never have read the fine print in the booklet: just looked at the outlets the gift card can be used in and, as there was a date on the front, I presumed that was the valid date”.

We contacted An Post to see what they had to say. A spokesman for One 4 All said the "vast majority of our cards are spent within the first three months of purchase.

“For cards where there are funds remaining on a card after 13 months, then a monthly charge is applied of just €1.45 to contribute toward the administration costs of maintaining the card details and funds.” And that was that.